Whispers In the Wind
by Kerosene Desire
Summary: "The sun shone brightly overhead and the vibrant colors of the fall morning under its radiant glow was almost offensively chipper and bright; as if the world conspired to show Weiss that life could go on - would go on - without her." WhiteRose. Alternative end to Vol. 2


**Whispers In the Wind**

The sun shone brightly overhead and the vibrant colors of the fall morning under its radiant glow was almost offensively chipper and bright; as if the world conspired to show Weiss that life could go on - _would_ go on - without _her_. A deep frown furrowed at her brows, lips tugging downwards in a grimace, as if reprimanding it for even daring to suggest such a notion. She was firmly of the belief that everything should be as dark and gloomy as her own emotions; cold, wet and damp. Why had the heavens not yet parted, and mourned the loss of their greatest angel? Why had it not shed the tears she herself had spent days attempting to control?

'_Blasphemy,'_ her mind cried, as the birds continued to sing and the leaves rustled in a symphony of wind.

She walked slowly through the cemetery, her legs taking her to where her mind refused to go. Logic had always been one of her greatest assets, and yet, despite the overwhelming evidence presented to her, she simply could not fathom what it concluded. She thought back on what seemed an eternity ago, but had only been a week or two at most; the day Ruby Rose gave her life to save the city.

"Why?" she whispered harshly, as she came upon the memorial stone; unlike those around it, it was not worn away with time but freshly carved with a name that had no place etched upon its surface. "Why did you have to die?"

Everything had gone from bad to worse in a matter of moments as Team RWBY and Dr. Oobleck struggled to stop the speeding train. Even with their combined efforts, they were no match for the sheer numbers of the White Fang, and an army of Grimm were slowly trailing behind them. Ruby had fought her way into the conductor's cabin, hellbent on stopping the train before it could reach the sealed cavern that protected Vale's underbelly. To her dismay, the brakes and controls had all been disabled, the locomotor set on a straight-on collision course for the underground barrier.

But as luck would have it, there was a manual override that would allow her to drive the train, and an upcoming turn-around in the tracks. She didn't think twice about seizing control, and although they nearly derailed making the looping turn, Ruby successfully reversed the train and sent it careening down the path it originally came. Still, even with this small victory, there came the much larger problem of the approaching Grimm. Even without the explosion to punch a hole through, the amount that gathered would surely find their way in by strength of numbers alone.

… That was when she found the detonator for the remaining bombs.

Ruby had yelled her orders from within the cabin, her voice carrying in the rushing wind as she told everyone to disengage and prepare to defend the entrance. Unaware of her plans, the four Hunters plus Zwei leapt from the train and rolled safely along the gravel to slow their falls. It wasn't until they'd picked themselves up, and the train was already several dozen yards away, that they noticed one thing missing.

Ruby.

Yang wailed her sister's name in agonizing realization and prepared to run after the vehicle, but Ruby smiled at her through the front window and shook her head 'no.' Instead, she gave a final wave in parting and mouthed the words 'I love you all'; then, with one hand in the accelerator and the other on the detonator, she drove the train into the heart of the approaching Grimm.

"Its not fair!" Weiss growled, hand clenching firmly in a fist. "You weren't supposed to die! _No one_ was supposed to die, but _especially _not you! You… you were the best of us… the one with all the big dreams..."

"Dunce!" she spat, attempting to glare at the stone as if it were Ruby herself, even as tears burned her vision. "Y-you just had to go and play the hero, huh? Just like your stupid books! Couldn't you have stopped for a moment and thought of something else? Did you ever contemplate the consequences of your actions? I bet you didn't! You just _did_ it because… because…"

A shaky sigh escaped her lips. '_Because it was the right thing to do,'_ her mind finished.

"Didn't you realize how much you meant to everyone…" The sudden burst of anger fizzled away like a dying flame, leaving only the bitter taste of guilt and regret in her mouth. "... didn't you realize much you meant to _me_?" she breathed, the familiar knot forming in her gut. It started like a terrible wrenching, as if something were attempting to claw its way from her insides out; then it climbed up her esophagus, squeezing her trachea and swelling her throat shut.

She dropped to her knees, all pretences of a prim and proper heiress dropping with her, as a choked sob tore it way past her lips. She was a Schnee, and even in mourning she was expected to remain dignified, but at that moment she cared for nothing but the overwhelming weight of her loss. Weiss had experienced death before, but never had it left her with such a gaping hole in her heart as it did now. She cried loudly like a child, with a running nose and wracking sobs, and for the first time ever she was unashamed to show such emotion.

"Tch, l-look at me…" she scoffed, laughing humorlessly. "I… I couldn't cry at your funeral, and only stared as they built your grave… but I cried endlessly for days after. To be honest, I don't think I've s-stopped crying since. C-crying like the weak, pathetic… baby that I am…"

"Look what you've done to me," she sobbed, running a knuckle beneath her eye to wipe away the tears. "I was perfectly fine until I met you, and now… now I barely even know what to do with myself. Do… do you remember? H-how we first met? Isn't it ironic… you came into my life the same way you left it…"

There was silence for several minutes as Weiss grieved quietly to herself, reminiscing of the girl who - in their short time together - had become the single most important person in her life. "I loved you," she admitted, after a moment of brief hesitation. "You were my first friend, the first person to accept me as a person not based on my family. You were annoying and unrelenting at times, clumsy and irresponsible… but you were also kind, selfless… what you lacked in academics you made up for with hard work and determination… the way you smiled and laughed, the way you just made the world… _better…_"

"I never liked Neptune," she went on, staring forlornly at the ground. "At least, not in _that _way. He's nice enough as a friend, I mean. I just… I'd never felt that way before… love was a foreign concept, something I'd read about in books or watched on screen. I had never expected to experience it for myself, and yet… I fell for you. I fell for you so hard, so f-fast and…"

"I wanted to tell you!" she exclaimed, "I wanted to tell you so badly, but I was terrified… I didn't know how to love anyone, let alone another _girl_. At least… at least pretending to chase Neptune was normal… boys and girls, right. That's how its supposed to be, isn't it? But now, looking back…"

She slumped forward, resting almost bonelessly on the back of her legs as she pressed her forehead against the stone marker. "I miss you," she whispered, shutting her eyes tightly as a fresh wave of tears threatened to fall. "I miss you so much that it hurts. It hurts right here…"

Weiss held a hand against her chest, gripping at the fabric of her blouse to keep it there. "And I'm not the only one," she sniffed, licking her lips which had chapped between every sobbing gasp. "Everyone… everyone misses you, Ruby. Its not the same without you here. Yang is a total mess, and Blake hasn't spoken for days… even Zwei won't eat. Team JNPR keeps to their dorm and it… its like when you died, a little part of everyone else died with you too…"

"How do we go on?" she asked, desperately, "How do we keep fighting? You were the glue that held us together, and without you there's nothing left to keep us from falling apart. Please… wherever you are now, give us a sign. Tell us what to do… tell _me_ what to do… I can't… I can't..."

This time she fell all the way to the ground. Grief threatened to consume her whole, and Weiss allowed it, curling in upon herself as her body shook violently with the force of her pain. She had visited the grave every day since the funeral, kneeling on the plot of freshly turned soil that had become her best friend's final resting place. A body had never officially been found - no one really expected to either - but everything they could find of her; the shredded rags that were once her cloak, the emblem of a rose she had carried upon her belt, the metal twisted and burnt; the remains of Crescent Rose; all of it had been gathered and buried here...

And here, Weiss would stay, as she had every other day, until the temperature fell and the light faded away; reciting the same words of a one-sided conversation, voice carrying away into a nonexistent void. Like Ruby, with her Semblance of speed, always there one moment and gone the next…

Like whispers in the wind.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: More practice writing! Its a bit sloppy and rushed, but it was making me sad to write lol. The last two practice writes were humorous, so I decided to go for something a bit more angsty this time around. Obviously, a deviation from the end of Volume 2 that thankfully never actually happened. Though, I do have some ideas for a continuation, that would turn this from a one-shot into a multi-fic. We'll see. Hope it was okay! Leave a review if you'd like! (I'd appreciate it a lot!)  
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**Until next time,  
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**KeroseneDesire**


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